Airbus A319 used to monitor Sea Shepherd's whaling clashes

Hobart correspondent for Fairfax Media

The federal government has begun whaling patrol flights, circling conservation group Sea Shepherd's ship in the Southern Ocean as skirmishing begins with Japanese whalers.

The flights by a long-range Airbus A319 are intended to monitor movements of the whaling fleet if it is hunting off Antarctica in Australia's search and rescue zone.

Sea Shepherd captain Peter Hammarstedt said the aircraft circled his ship, the Bob Barker, for about eight minutes on Sunday morning and came close enough to be clearly identified. No contact was made. ''When any whaling monitoring mission has been completed, we will provide a public report,'' a spokesman for Environment Minister Greg Hunt said.

The flight came after the first clash of this year, which resulted in a diplomatic protest to the Netherlands, flag state of the Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin. Its skipper, Siddarth Chakravarty, said he deployed two small boats whose crew used lines in a bid to slow down the whalers' security ship, Shonan Maru No.2, which is tailing the Steve Irwin. ''When this was met with aggression from the crew of the Shonan Maru No.2 … I retrieved the small boats,'' Mr Chakravarty said.